Green Room

Greenpeace status check: Yep, still crazy

In case you thought all those F-bombs would go to waste, Greenpeace has a message for you. According to the Daily Mail:

Greenpeace activists attempted to close down a number of BP petrol stations across London this morning, creating a huge inconvenience for motorists.

The group claims it had shut off fuel supplies at about 50 service station forecourts by flipping safety switches.

The switches were then removed to prevent the patrol stations from reopening, activists claimed.

But a BP spokesman said protesters had only managed to close down about 30 service stations, adding that they would be reopened as soon as it was safe to do so.

The spokesman said: ‘We are aware that a number of our stations have been closed.

‘One of the sites affected is used to supply ambulances with fuel putting sick people at risk.

‘We are working to re-open the sites as soon as possible.

‘This is an act of vandalism that clearly puts motorists and staff at the sites at risk.’

The stunt has been described as ‘an irresponsible and childish act’.

Oh, you stodgy old whiners. As if pulling and removing the switch to nearly 50 gas stations in London alone would affect anything of import like, you know, taxpayers trying to get to work in a troubled economy or ambulances and staff already strapped for time and resources because of NHS regulation. It’s for the pelicans!

Let these glossy Greenpeace signs plastered on affected stations be a lesson to villainous Big Oil: They will SHUT YOU DOWN…just after using petroleum-based products for their propaganda. (And hipster hair products. And nerdy glasses. And skinny jeans.) Consistency.

… My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason — because it was, in his words, good for his soul.

What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.